May 20, 2009

After four days of living out of a car and sleeping in whatever bed/couch was closest, it can now be confirmed:

I am a wanderer by nature. It is in me; it is a very, very deep part of me. I can't escape it.

It just is.

I will wear my clothes all day, sleep in them, and start the next day the very same way. I will eat marshmallows roasted over the kitchen stove at midnight, and call them dinner. I will sleep on your couch, even if I barely know you. I will wander calmly through cities I do not know. I will brush my teeth in McDonald's bathrooms. I will shower at campgrounds. I will buy last week's Thomas bagels for half-price. I will fill up my water bottle at rest stops. I will paint my face in the dark. I will wrap myself in my ripped-up, aging patchwork quilt. I will knot strings around my wrists.

And I will be very, very alive.

*sigh*

Last night while sitting next to a fountain in downtown Syracuse a friend asked me where I saw myself. I tilted my head questioningly."like, where do you see yourself living? Do you want to live in a city, in a suburb, in the country, in Africa? Where do you want to spend your life?"I can't answer that question unless "all of the above, plus lists and lists more" is an option. I don't want to spend my life in any one place. I don't have a dream home all perfectly structured in my mind or a certain place I want to settle down and raise my kids and establish my life...la la la.. It's nearly impossible for me to even think like that. I want to go places. I want to fall in love with a zillion people and places. I want to learn heaps and heaps from every unique, challenging situation I am in. I want my life to be such that every time I think I've figured something out, I experience something new that tears up what little I had thought I knew; to be constantly re-shaped as I am constantly re-evaluating; continually uncomfortable. Always shifting and becoming. I have no desire to just be.

It was nice to sit with someone who felt the same way. For those five hours I felt, dare-I-say, normal. And even beyond normal, I felt exceptional. I felt beautiful. I felt like I had something worth having. I felt, I honest-to-goodness felt as though what was stirring within me was what it's going to take to change the world.

To change the world you must believe in the Possibile more than you believe any of the limitations, regulations, or systems that convince us there is such a thing as "impossible". You must be willing to look rediculous. You must be willing to go without. You must be willing to fail. You must be willing to let go.

And you must know what it means to Love.

Four days sleeping in four different placesand I feel better than I've felt in a long time. It's deep inside me, which is exactly how I believe it should be.

May 7, 2009

I'm in the process of switching from coffee (which I cut down to one small cup a day) to tea-bag chai. My new morning beverage routine is as follows:

Fill tea pot. Put tea pot on stove. Turn on stove. Retrieve large ceramic mug from cupboard. Retrieve chai tea bag from cupboard. Sit on stool. Stare into open space spinning nonsensical thoughts through murky mind. Hear a hiss. Pour hot water into ceramic mug while holding the tea bag so it doesn't sink. Watch tea bag bob in the waves of the freshly poured water. Bob tea bag when the waves stop. Add large spoonful of local honey to hot tea. Add milk to hot tea.

I enjoy everything about this far more than in my previous life when I enjoyed my hot cups of coffee. A friend once told me my tea tasted like leaves. Well friend, yes, yes it does a bit doesn't it.

I happen to really like leaves.

Which makes spring a little sad. All the leaves are in brown mushy layers on the ground.Where I lay and stare at the clouds after running barefoot in a field I just discovered on the very top of a gigantic hill in the center of a city. Everything about it is perfect. Individuals, no doubt claiming disability, are picnicing just over the hill; old men and women (truly disabled) sit in their cars memorizing the view.

My insides are calmer than they have been since I feasted on that red dirt. Something is happening inside of me, and it's good. Really good. I think it helps to let go. It sucks, but it helps.